


Compass Left Behind

by WhirlyBird70



Series: the nearest thing to dreams hands have ever made [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Crew as Family, Gen, Going Merry is a Volkswagen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, In a way, M/M, Mentions of Starvation, Mentions of genocide, Mentions of the Mafia, Oh ace is dead btw, Road Trips, and Thousand Sunny is a decked out futuristic RV, and so is vivi oops, f u garp, lets go break fish dad out. from prison everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 04:00:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19243408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70
Summary: because I am always pulled to you-Luffy is 14 when his world falls apart. And he is 14 when, all on his own, he decides to go out and search for the souls he knew should have been next to him, every step of the way.-A Modern Day Straw Hat Reincarnation AU





	Compass Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> So! This is a bit darker than some of my other works, mainly because of the content described. Take care of yourself and read the warnings! I can't judge my self if it is particularly graphic, so I entrust that to you!
> 
> Anyway, this is the hopeful thought to a series where I just post drabbles in this universe, but I am thinking of something starting far more grounded and uh... less _this _if that makes sense.__
> 
>  
> 
> __  
> _Enjoy!_  
> 

When Ace dies in a flurry of fast motions and undeniable cruelty  _(gun fight – a gang fight, Akainu fire arson why were you born- oh god it **burns**_ ) Luffy screams at the pain of being alone. His brothers are dead, Shanks spirited away into the wind, Garp, military (abusive) and untrustworthy, and Makino and Dadan’s gang are underserving of this mess that he has wrought upon them.

Luffy is 14 when he becomes completely and utterly abandoned, and he is 14 when the thought whispers into his mind

_Why? Why am I alone? It shouldn’t be this way - Never should be this way. Where are they?_

And so he starts to search.

-

  
Monkey D. Luffy first whispered into their lives with the soft smile on Zoro’s sunlit face as he wandered home from school. This smile lasts for the week, a week of Koushirou’s adopted son seeming more complete and alive than he has ever been before - and then he is gone, katanas packed away with sturdy clothes and tracking chip pulled out of his phone.

Koushirou wonders about the boy who Zoro mentioned only once ( _I met someone today – his name is (_ and the way he said the name sounded like a **_king_** )) but accepts it. Zoro always had the spirit of a wanderer in him - but it never seemed to belong _just_ to him.

He reports Zoro’s disappearance to the authorities but missing posters get buried. Somethings were not meant to be - somethings were meant to be lost to the world (Zoro had always been lost – always had an internal compass that only pointed at one person.)

Koushirou hopes the boy he raised (in place of a daughter who died) is happy now. 

-

They meet Nami in the mall, her life safe at last and her family and their small tangerine farm whole and unharmed. There is nothing stopping her from saying no when Luffy stretches out a hand, to instead stay with her family who have no recognition of the name _Arlong_.

But she takes the hand anyway, the weight she never knew was there lifting off of her. She was supposed to be a navigator for a big company in the fall, with big rewards, perfect for a girl who had no interest of spending big bucks at college

But she drops it all and takes the hand offered.

And well -

That is that.

(They, piled into Luffy’s (Ace’s) old custom flame-detailed Camaro, make for an odd bunch, with Luffy’s scars and Zoro’s swords and Nami’s maps and money bags (as well as three shriveled tangerine tree seeds kept in a golden locket around her wrist) but they could not care less.)

-

Usopp joins them three states over and for once does not lie - he speaks truthfully about the pull he feels, like waves to the moon’s commands, like a compass to the north, and laments that maybe he’ll meet his dad on the road - out in the big wide radiant west.

He brings along a bigger ride for them all in the form of a painted Volkswagen van, and tall tales, a reminder that there’s joy in the smallest of things.

(Kaya, they learn, is a name not to be spoken for she died a year ago, officially due to an illness. Unofficially, Usopp tells them of a butler who had a history in poison and botany, and how his claws quickly sunk into the family riches once the orphan girl passed away, suddenly and with the smallest of funerals.

But - this is not a tale of heroes or interference in carefully laid plans- this is a tale of people finding home and family.

And Kaya, while she had a place in Usopp’s heart, never had a place aboard the sunny, beloved ship ( _home_ ) in their dreams of _before_.)

-

Sanji kicks them from his restaurant, freshly inherited from Zeff who died three months previous, four times until he finally caves and agrees to go with them.

The chefs and waiters are happy to see him go, even if his boyfriend, Gin, isn’t (-he’ll miss him, can’t he see that?)

The restaurant was never the twenty-two-year old’s dream, only a prison made of a debt and a soured paternal love and the staff _knew_ that.

They do not understand what makes these strangers so important to him, but they do not stop him from leaving, from kissing his mafia boyfriend one last passionate time, from signing restaurant over to his most trusted workers and hopping in the car with two teens and a young adult.

It was never their place to know what made him so weary of food being stolen.

(Besides. His cigarettes were clogging up the air.)

-

They never meet Vivi. They only ever hear of her in newspapers clippings, proclaiming that the last princess of Alabasta perished during an uprising in her now fallen kingdom.

(In this life, it is not a world of heroes and happiness)

The story is sad in general, but they are even more mournful because more than it being a tragic tale, they never got to meet her again, this girl that they have never met.

(But they knew she would never, ever stay, no matter how hard they begged. Her golden heart belonged to the desert sun, the sand beneath feet, and the people hailing her name. Some things are constant like that.)

-

Tony Tony Chopper, prodigy and fully-fledged doctor at the age of twenty-six, takes one look at them and quits his job at his adopted father’s old clinic.

No one comments on how though he is the eldest, everyone ruffles his hair like he is the youngest.

No one talks about the little cherry blossoms and antlers embroidered on his sweater, or the way he _despises_ mushrooms.

No one mentions the way he gapes at Zoro and Luffy, one with too little scars (though they are thankful for that) and one with far, _far_ too many.

(He’ll pass creams to both of them, helping smooth it over Luffy’s back and arms and chest and face and just anywhere really (so many scars - skin didn’t scar this easily _before_ ) and letting Zoro do his own, spreading the cool substance over his chest and ankles and face (but never his back - would be a shame if he did), places that had always ached mysteriously previously, and always during storms like Luffy’s did now.)

-

Robin comes into their lives silently, appearing in the back of the Merry (Usopp’s mothers old Volkswagen van that he inherited, that he and Kaya had painted with pictures of seas and sheep and dreaming words before ... _everything_ ) one day and never leaving after that.

There are no doubts within them or her that she belongs with them - not this time, and not ever again. She brings a multitude of books with her and helps finish Zoro’s and Luffy’s spotty education, filling in gaps of knowledge with care and love.

She never speaks of genocide, never speaks of the circling brand on her left shoulder blade, and the haunted look in here eye but she doesn’t have to.

Like before, the past does not matter here, with them.

(Unlike before, the only thing that _does_ matter is them - there are no dreams in this concrete world, only the slowly filling in of the ache of _where were you_ and _I was **alone**_.)

-

The blue haired man who tried to steal their car is Franky, and though this time only his arm and nose are metal - it doesn’t make him any less strong or big. Once he sees the little keychain of a straw hatted jolly roger, custom made, hanging on the mirror, however, he stops in his theft, sitting there in the front seat, the wires already hotwired, and smiles. That’s where they find him, and after only the briefest of introductions (for they all know each other already, really, in some inescapable way) and goodbyes (the Franky family are still family but the world is crueler now then then, and bonds like that aren’t meant to stay (but bonds like theirs are)) they leave after a small pitstop.

Merry cannot hold him (cannot hold three more people, they need _more_ ) and so it is a near blessing in disguise when Merry is forced to be ripped away from them by a bad car accident - a cop careening down the road after a clown with a sword (an odd sight but not the oddest. They were all more worried about clinging together and making sure they were all _alive_ ). No fights happen between them this time (they do not know how they would take it if one of them walked away - they don’t know if they even can now that they’ve found each other).

Instead, they watch as Franky commandeers his brother’s company for one week, and creates a home on the road for them. Simple and deceiving on the outside yet extravagantly homey within, the extremely luxurious and custom RV is familiar enough with a small shielded garden on the top, a library within and couches and bunks soft and plush to rest their weary head.

Sunny, they decide to call the RV, now detailed on the side in bold, dreamful lettering with a painted smiling lion face, for all the sunny days they will have together.

(They’re almost _complete_.)

-

Brook sees them in the crowd and steps off his stage, disappearing into the night. His fans are disappointed and the rest of the world confused - where had the man, the superstar, gone?

The man himself is gaunt, brittle and bone like, which is only accented by his skeletal make up, but he laughs and cracks jokes with them all, one more puzzle piece, one more weapon to defeat the battle that is loneliness.

His music soothes them to bed with the sweetest tunes, and the songs he releases to the public are more popular than ever - for they have something the _old_ Brook used to have but thought he never would again.

The love of _family_.

(He does not speak of years spent by the coast, playing songs with other folk and whales, as they danced happily to the breeze. He does not speak of tsunamis and death and wondering why he above all others survived because he knows _why_ \- so the loneliness would end when he was with _them_.)

-

Jinbe is last and when they break him free from the prison on the coast, it is all they can do not to cry and sob with relief. They are _whole_ again, never mind the mafia and government after them thanks to Jinbe’s escape, they can _breathe_ again.

When they collapse inside Sunny, far away from the lights that searched for them, bandages applied to broken boys (why did he have so many scars?) and smiles given, they do cry, and Jinbe envelopes them all with a hug until they fall backward into a giant, happy dog pile.

He is warm and big and steers them in the right direction, just as he always did. The last part of the puzzle is complete and now they can be free with each other instead of trapped _alone_.

(Jinbe is the first to know about the beginning, what happened to their captain in this life (for he knew Ace as well) and he does not forgive himself for not being there like he was _before_. But, he does pray to and thank every god he knows that Luffy was able to get up alone - and find them all.

It’s a miracle, really. (It’s what he was known for))

-

Together they travel, making money in dubious ways (street performance and thievery among them – stealth is a skill that Luffy has somehow acquired now but none of them like to think about _how_ ) and having as much adventure and life as they can before their time inevitably runs out.

They travel and learn about each other what makes them different from before (they learn what before was.)

They learn of new ages (Luffy 14, Zoro 16, Nami 18, Usopp 20, Sanji 22, (Vivi would be 24) Chopper 26, Robin, like before 28, Franky 30, Brook 32, and Jinbe, 34 - two years apart for the two years they spent apart. They wished their youngest weren’t so young,) new habits (video game design was what Usopp was going to go to college for, once he had saved enough) and the things that stayed the same (Nami can still haggle prices down to a quarter of the original price, and Zoro still uses three katanas.)

It’s a good life, a happy life. They found each other again - how could it not be?

-

Of course - not everything’s perfect. It comes back to them in the little moments

It’s in the way Zoro will sit himself beside the door on rainy days, ready to catch anyone who slips; in the way Nami hoards money like she’ll die without it and what she’ll be willing to sacrifice for it (herself and others but never her family), in the way that Usopp, though understanding, will lurch whenever someone seems just a tad too sad and frantically tell a tale as if everyone’s life depended on it, and the way he’s wary of every trusting, loyal servant they come across.

It’s in the way Sanji won’t eat if someone else wont (all too common, none of them are okay with food sometimes, even Luffy, who will sometimes stop eating randomly, and Zoro, who occasionally forgets he _can_ keep eating) or in the way Chopper will quadruple check every medical thing he does when not in an emergency.

It’s in the way Robins mind goes blank at certain books and the way her fingers tremble even when doing something she loves; in the way Franky will ghost his hand over his nose and arm and belly and scars and remember the day _everything_ was lost; in the way that Brook can’t stand foggy nights that become like his mind occasionally, clouded and alone.

And especially it’s in the way the Luffy, Luffy who used to never be afraid (because rubber couldn’t _hurt_ , at least not easily), will flinch and snag calloused fingers in Zoro’s or Jinbe’s clothing, arms taut and eyes wide, trembling and so abruptly quiet while he pushes whatever food is on his plate away whenever voices raise or fists fly in the kitchen (only ever the kitchen), and will shriek and go silent, crouched in a ball if its directed at him - (The kitchen area is a no fight zone now, if they _have_ to do it they do it beyond the divider and in the other areas while the rest distract Luffy.) It’s in the way Luffy has far too many scars (from punches and kicks and being thrown off balconies and cliffs from supposedly loving hands, from fights in back alleys and scrambling to survive – he’s only _14_ and _before_ it wouldn’t faze them at all but this world is so much more real in the way the other wasn’t) and in the way one used to be able to count each individual rib on his side.

No.

It’s the little moments that hurt the worse.

-

But there are also happy moments, happiness found in places one wouldn’t think to look.

Like being chased by cars flashing red and blue lights, in a flame detailed beat up Camaro, like seeing how high cola rockets could blast, like finally hearing the end to Robin’s memorized bed time story that spoke of pirates of old and new, and sunny days always looking toward the dawning horizon.

Like being there to see Zoro and Luffy, always on the same page, experience something for the first time, like the high school dance they snuck into or the stars on the unlit coast (well that was a first for most actually). Like seeing Brook’s guitar strum a special song made just for them, or having Chopper give special band aids for each one of them (Luffy’s had pirates, Zoro’s tigers, Nami’s tangerines, Usopp’s birds, Sanji’s hearts and Franky’s gears. Robin and Brook were more careful so everyone was still vying to see what design they would get)

It was the joys that built them up again

-

And it was the experiences that reminded them of who they were.

Because no matter the world, no matter the life now or the life before, Luffy would always have the soul of a conqueror, of a _king_ \- and the rest of them would always be his most loyal crew.

These experiences included back alley fights and dealings and tussles with gangs, included hunting down Ace’s killer and killing him in return (because none of them are perfect, even now) in breaking out of prison as a _family_ (whoever thought of imprisoning them all together made a mistake) to shielding Luffy from his grandfather when the mere mention let alone actually _meeting_ with the man made him tremble and near cry.

It was falling from the mountain Skypeia, miraculously making it out alive, and visiting Fishman Island off the coast of the southern continent. It was visiting Venice and Antarctica and the pyramids and breaking into historical places (but being respectful because robin loved history) and everything amazing in-between.

And it was being together that made it all worth it - because in this life they didn’t have dreams to reach for, to strive for, to devout their lives towards. They just had each other.

And that was enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, it is purposefully vague if they really remember or not. Take what you will from it.
> 
> Also - I love Garp as a character, and in the One Piece universe I can let his behavior somewhat slide as all of his grandsons are abnormally strong and oblivious to danger.
> 
> Anywhere else? ://////
> 
> Alright, that aside, as always please tell me if there are any corrections to be made, mistakes, suggestions, etc. if you have things you want to see in this universe. Please let me know!
> 
> I am also on Tumblr now at [whirlybirdwrites!](https://whirlybirdwrites.tumblr.com) So check that out if you want updates on Recognition or want to see me scream about One Piece and other assorted fandoms.
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> \- Whirly!


End file.
